


riley

by celluloid



Series: ið [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Developing Friendships, Gen, Healing, Pre-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 07:22:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15262329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloid/pseuds/celluloid
Summary: “Yeah, you look like a Thor. What is that, Swedish?”“Asgardian.”Sam has to stop for a moment. God damn it, what? “I’m Sam,” he follows up, for lack of anything better.“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sam. I shall remember your name so I may address you directly when explaining how wrong you were to force me to a hospital.”





	riley

Sam’s pre-dawn run along the National Mall is cut short when something crashes down into the Potomac. 

That’s what startles him out of his mid-run haze. Not the - was it a thunder clap? It couldn’t have been, the skies are - well, not as clear as he had thought, but they were still—

Seconds’ worth of hindsight grant Sam the idea that whatever it was that fell had been a man, or at least, man-shaped. And no. No. He hasn’t been back for long, but he’s not dealing with— He’s not dealing with not being able to help someone else who just fell out of the sky. It’s not happening.

Seconds later and he’s abandoning the path to jump into the river, where the ripples are still fading out and nothing is emerging. Safety and hygiene be damned, he’s at least getting this guy onto dry land and making sure he’s still breathing.

He’s already in the river by the time something else crashes into the reflecting pool behind him, only moving forward, ignoring the dangerous-looking sky above and whatever else may be around him.

Sam wades out to the epicentre of the last of the ripples. There’s nothing there. Maybe he’s just seeing things. He takes a breath and dives under, blind without any light, reaching out for something, anything.

He finds it, hand wrapping around… a wrist, maybe? It takes everything Sam has in him to resurface, but up with him comes a body, a head above water, one that’s unresponsive but it’s better than absolutely nothing.

Sam half-swims, half-drags the body to shore. He immediately starts doing chest compressions, and gets a fist to the jaw for his trouble.

“Ow,” he grumbles, rubbing at his jaw, head snapping forwards to get a look at his rescuee-turned-assailant. “What the fuck?” But at least he’s alive.

The man looks like he’s twice Sam’s size. He obviously isn’t literally, but that’s what it feels like. Sam’s just grateful he’s keeping in shape, because anything less, and dude might have drowned.

The dude in question is propping himself up on his elbows, looking around. “Where am I?” he demands, voice deep and commanding. Sam might have more respect for it if he hadn’t just been punched in the jaw.

“What do you mean, where are you?” Sam snaps. “You’re in DC. I just saved your life. You’re welcome.”

The man looks up at Sam, looks out across the river, looks down at himself and his soaked clothes sticking to his skin, highlighting every single muscle upon muscle and calm down, Wilson. Having taken stock of his situation, the man’s eyes soften. “My apologies,” he rumbles, and Sam finds himself instantly feeling bad for snapping at him. “I am… disoriented. I hope I did not harm you.”

“You didn’t,” Sam says. He did. He totally did. “Where did you come from, man? Some kind of training exercise gone wrong?” That he’s just wearing what looks to be a plain shirt, plain pants— it’s a little alarming, extremely out of the norm.

The man furrows his brow. “Training exercise?”

“Yeah. Because you fell out of the sky.”

The blank look on his face tells Sam this guy knows about as much as he does. “Where am I, again?”

Okay, or maybe even less. Good start. “DC, man.”

An uncertain, hesitant pause. “… Where?”

Sam just blinks in astonishment. The guy speaks perfect English, and sure, his accent doesn’t sound like he’s from anywhere in the States, but… “You know, Washington DC?” Blank look. “The capital of the United States?” Still nothing. “Dude, how do you not know where you are?” 

“What planet is this?” the man asks, and Sam’s day has officially gotten weird. The sun is only just now coming up, so this is going to be a long one.

“Planet? Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” Sam asks.

The man reaches up to gingerly touch the top of his head. “I don’t think so,” he says. 

Sam takes stock of their surroundings. They’re both sitting on the shoreline, soaking wet, probably disgusting, one of them with a jaw that’s still smarting and the other possibly with amnesia after crash landing in the Potomac River seemingly out of nowhere. It’s still so early in the morning that nobody else is around. He reaches for his phone, then curses softly when he remembers he forgot it on his way out the door. Which is probably a good thing, actually, since it’d be water damaged beyond all repair by now.

“Alright,” he decides. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

At that, the man just barks out a laugh. “Does it look like I am in need of care?”

“Yes?” Sam ventures. “I don’t know what secret operation you were doing, but you just fell out of the sky and almost drowned. You absolutely need to go to the hospital. People are probably looking for you, anyway. The hospital can at least let them know.”

The man’s face clouds at that. “I would think the people who wish to know my location already know exactly where I am.”

Sam just blinks. Cryptic stranger with possible brain damage. “Ooookay,” he says. “Come on, can you stand up? Hospital. Let’s go.”

The man bats away his offered hand, offended, and gingerly stands up on his own. “I can take care of myself,” he says. 

“You don’t even know where you are,” Sam rebuts.

The man pauses. “A fair point.” 

“Come on, let’s go,” Sam says. “You got a metro card?”

“A what?”

Does this guy know anything? “Of course you don’t. Fuck it, it’s probably faster to walk. You good to walk, man? It’s not that far.”

“I do not need to go to a hospital,” he insists.

“Well, too bad,” Sam says, “because I’m not leaving you alone until you do. I did not risk my ass pulling you from the river just for you to wander off and get hit by a car or something at this rate. Let’s go.”

The man - who seriously looks like he could kick Sam’s ass, especially now that he’s standing up at full height - eyes him. Sam matches his gaze, jutting his chin out. They stare at one another until, finally, the man breaks into a smile. “Very well. As you wish,” he says, extending his arm, telling Sam to lead the way.

“Thank you,” Sam says, relieved that he’s at least got his good deed for the day under his belt. “You sure you good to walk?”

“I am physically well,” the man says. “I will go to your hospital, and they will tell you the exact same thing.”

“Yeah, sure they will. You got a name?” Sam asks as they start up, passing war memorials, going behind the Lincoln Memorial, completely out of sight of the reflecting pool. 

“Thor, son of Odin.”

“Yeah, you look like a Thor. What is that, Swedish?”

“Asgardian.”

Sam has to stop for a moment. God damn it, what? “I’m Sam,” he follows up, for lack of anything better.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sam. I shall remember your name so I may address you directly when explaining how wrong you were to force me to a hospital.”

* * *

He’s got a few hours before he needs to be anywhere, so Sam figures he’ll wait. He hasn’t been back stateside for long; it’s not like he’s officially qualified to counsel anybody. Not yet, but soon. He still has some of his own shit to work through, but he’s making progress.

Memories are often unreliable, but he keeps replaying the scene from the morning in his mind, trying to figure out if there was something he missed. It had not started raining, he knows that for sure. But there had been a loud sound, like an explosion, and the pre-dawn skies had briefly gotten… angry? Ominous? Were there clouds? Was there a flash of light illuminating a silhouette falling? Had he just been seeing things?

No, he knows he hadn’t, because he saved someone from drowning. It wasn’t an RPG knocking someone out of the sky - at least, he’s pretty sure it wasn’t? This is DC, right? - but someone fell. Someone was in the Potomac, and he got them out.

“Hey, Riley,” Sam murmurs to himself. “Hope you’re doing good up there.” Quickly, subconsciously, wipes at his eyes.

The day is only just starting, so it’s still pretty quiet. He’s not sure what’s taking so long, since the guy - Thor. Seriously, Thor? - had been able to walk with him to the hospital just fine. Which is abnormal, but then again, everything about this is. 

Should he be worried that it’s taking so long to check Thor out? Has he been vindicated in his decision to force him to come here? Should he stay until his unit commander comes to collect him, relay what happened, make sure everything’s good? Is it even any of his business?

“Excuse me. Mr. Wilson?” a voice says above him.

Sam blinks in surprise, sitting up. How long has this guy been there? “Yeah, that’s me,” he says.

The guy extends his hand. “Agent Coulson,” he says, and Sam shakes it. It’s warm. Coulson has kind eyes. “You’re the one who found our friend?”

“Yeah, you know him?” Sam asks. “Is he alright?”

“We’re still piecing things together,” Coulson says, not answering Sam at all. “I’m going to have to ask you a few questions.”

“Sure,” Sam says. 

“Not here.”

Sam’s reluctant to leave until they discharge Thor, but really, if he doesn’t know anything about what he’s doing here, then surely Sam’s presence is unnecessary, right? (Ignore how cryptic this guy is being with him now - how he doesn’t seem to know what Thor’s doing here, either, even if he’s acting like he’s in charge.) It’s not like he’s anyone’s babysitter. (He’s starting to hate a lot of things about how this is unfolding.)

“Sure,” Sam says, following Coulson out to a private car. The city is waking up; it’s bright and loud outside.

Inside the car, though, it’s quiet and dark. Coulson steps in after him. There’s a partition up, and once the door shuts, he can’t hear anything from the outside. He’d almost think he was here to die, except Coulson - still with the kind eyes - came in with him, and Sam thinks if it came to it, he could probably take him in a fight.

He’s being paranoid. He was an airman. Isolated, confined spaces like this aren’t great.

Coulson hits the roof, and they start moving. “Where are we going?” Sam asks. 

“Just for a little ride. Don’t worry. We can drop you off at home when we’re done. You were in the Air National Guard, right? The EXO-7 program?”

Sam eyes him. “Yeah,” he says. “You don’t need to drop me off at home.” They probably know his address anyway, but no need to lead them straight to it. “How’s Thor?”

“His name is Thor?” Coulson asks and oh, shit, there are alarm bells going off in Sam’s head. How would they not know this?

Sam plays it off, shrugging. “That’s what he told me.” 

“I see,” Coulson says, now looking at Sam with far greater interest. “What do you know about Thor, then, Mr. Wilson?” 

Sam weighs his options in his mind. He could lie, but he doesn’t have much to lie about. He could tell the truth, which could be dangerous in its own right, but then he doesn’t know too much himself. He’d probably be of very little use in the long run.

Truth it is, then. For now.

“Nothing, really,” Sam says. “I saw him fall into the river. I pulled him out and took him to the hospital. That’s it.” That’s not totally it, because once he woke up, Thor was in great condition, memory issues aside. And he was from— not Sweden. Something that started with an A. Not any place he’s ever heard of before. 

But he’s not going to divulge that to someone who didn’t even know his name.

“How is he doing now?” Sam asks.

“Still under observation,” Coulson says.

“But he’s alive, yeah?” 

“Yes.” 

“Conscious?” 

“Like I said, Mr. Wilson, he’s still under observation.” Coulson leans back, folding his hands together. “How did he fall into the river?”

“I don’t know,” Sam says, and this is the best kind of honesty: the kind where he knows nothing.

“There was an astronomical event. We picked it up. So I’ll be a little more specific: he didn’t jump in from the shore, right? He fell out of the sky?”

Sam shrugs. “If you say so,” he says. “I wasn’t really paying attention to my surroundings. You don’t really expect something like that. Instinct just kicked in and I followed it.”

Coulson is silent for a moment, and Sam knows this guy has read his file, can just feel that he’s thinking about Riley, can see he wants to ask about him, isn’t sure if he’ll respond by assaulting him or what. He braces himself for something that never comes. “You were in pararescue, right?” Coulson asks. “So it must have been natural for you.” 

Sam’s shoulders relax. He hadn’t even been aware he was tensing up. “Yeah,” he says.

“Can you describe the sky?” Coulson asks.

Sam shakes his head. “Not reliably,” he says. “It was pre-dawn. It was dark. I thought I heard something like thunder, but it definitely wasn’t raining. I don’t know what it was.” 

Coulson nods. “Was anyone else out there, that you saw?”

“No.”

“And how did you get Thor to the hospital?” Coulson asks.

Sam swears internally; this is where he’s going to come across either as an idiot or a liar. Preferably the former. “We walked,” he says, nonchalantly.

Coulson levels him an unimpressed gaze. “You walked.” 

“Yeah.”

“Why not call for help? Why not hail a cab?”

“You wanna search me?” Sam asks. “Streets were deserted. I don’t have my phone on me. He seemed fine, so we walked.”

“A man who, by your account, fell out of the sky, seemed fine? How long is that walk - a mile? A mile and a half?”

Sam spreads his arms. “You want me to change my answer?” he asks. “There were limited options. I chose the best one. I just wanted to make sure the guy was safe, and you haven’t even been able to tell me that.”

Coulson’s face smooths over at that: sympathetic, but blank. “Fair enough,” he says. “I understand this must be unusual, so strange circumstances would, of course, apply. Thank you for your time, Mr. Wilson. I just have one more question for you: did you pass the reflecting pool on your way there?” 

Sam blinks. “No,” he says, slowly.

Coulson smiles at him as the car comes to a stop. “Thanks again. Can I get the door for you?” he asks as he already reaches across to open it. The sun’s higher in the sky now; Sam brings up a hand to shield his eyes, then sees they’ve taken him home anyway.

“Thanks,” he says, dryly, but doesn’t make a move to get out yet. “You could take me back to the hospital, though.”

“We’ve moved our friend to a more secure facility.”

“Then you can take me there.” 

Coulson raises his eyebrows. “Do you know him?” 

“I’m just a decent person trying to look out for a man’s best interests,” Sam says. “You know I was in pararescue.” _And you know my exact address, too, that’s reassuring._

Coulson smiles. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “He’s in good hands now, I promise. May I call you if I have any further questions?”

“Yeah, you should do that,” Sam says, still not moving to get out of the vehicle.

Coulson’s expression doesn’t waver. “I know things seem off, but trust me, we’re the good guys,” he says. “You did a good thing today, Mr. Wilson. Let us take it from here. You go back to your new line of work - focus on the people who need you that don’t have anyone else looking out for them.”

Sam continues to just stare. Something in Coulson’s face changes, like a mask falling; his smile seems more earnest, more honest. “There’s only so much information I’m at liberty to divulge - you understand. I’ll let you know what happens if I can, I promise.” 

A small smile of his own falls on Sam’s lips; he closes his eyes and shakes his head, but makes his move to get out anyway. Coulson looks up at him from inside the car, not immediately shutting the door. “You’ll get a followup, trust me.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” Sam asks.

Coulson smiles. “Not really, no.” And with that, the door shuts, the car is gone, and Sam’s strange morning is, by all reasonable means, over.

The first thing Sam does is go back into his home and retrieve his phone. The second thing he does is make his way back down to the mall, because Coulson mentioned the reflecting pool and he’s going to need to see what’s going on there. 

Except it is, of course, closed off. That entire strip of the mall is. Sam tries to push his way past, only to be stopped by a guard: “Sorry, sir, the area is closed today.”

“No, it’s cool, I talked to Coulson,” Sam says; let nobody say he ever lacked bravado when he needed it. 

“Do you have SHIELD identification?” the guard asks.

“Do I have what?” 

The guard shakes his head. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

* * *

So Sam’s been effectively told to fuck off. The original hospital refuses to give him any information on Thor or where he may be now, and looking into SHIELD or an Agent Coulson does nothing for him, leaving Sam with no information. So he tries to fuck off. 

His running route has been disrupted; they’re refusing to open that part of the mall to the public, which is quite the feat, Sam thinks, considering the high density of attractions there. He wishes he had taken Thor up that way instead of behind the Lincoln Memorial; maybe he would have gotten more answers if Thor had seen whatever it was in the reflecting pool that has everyone so hyped up.

Shit. He just wants to know that the guy he tried to save is okay. Is that so much to ask? He doesn’t really care about any of the stuff surrounding it - well, he kind of does, it’d be impossible for anyone to not have their curiosity piqued - but mostly he just wants to know if the guy who fell out of the sky is okay.

The scene keeps playing itself in his head over and over when he closes his eyes: a loud sound (thunder? An explosion?), a figure falling, and in one case he’s able to save him and in another all he can do is watch and wake up in a cold sweat.

He thought he had been making progress.

A part of him yearns for his wings, just in case it happens again. Another part of him just wants to run so he can enter that blank slate of mind. Another wants to sleep. The most desperate part wants him to just pretend this never happened and go back to his day-to-day life, be there for the people he’s fighting to try to help. That’s the one he tries to listen to the most, though it’s hard. Everything is a struggle again.

He falls. Sam takes to sleeping on the hardwood again, stranded.

* * *

A few days later, he gets a call from a number he doesn’t recognize.

“Hello?” Sam answers, stopping mid-run. He’s had to find a new route. He’s annoyed.

“Mr. Wilson? It’s Agent Coulson,” the voice on the other end says. “Where are you? We need you to come in.”

Sam folds his arms. “More questions?” 

“Not exactly,” Coulson says.  

Sam looks at his watch and sighs. “You know where I live. Be there in 20.”

* * *

Of course it’s another ride in a dark car. Of course he has no idea where he is when he gets there. This was more than he’d been able to realistically hope for, but he’s still annoyed.

Coulson greets him inside the facility, wherever it is they are. He sticks out his hand; Sam’s not an asshole, so he shakes it, but he doesn’t return the smile, doesn’t have time for platitudes. “What’s wrong?” he asks, striking a balance between polite and demanding.

“Our friend is fine,” Coulson says, leading Sam down a hallway. “Or, rather, I should say your friend is fine. Are you sure you didn’t know him from before?”

“No,” Sam says, “I met him when I fished him out of the river. Why?” He isn’t getting incriminated in something, is he?

“Then you must have made quite the impression,” Coulson says, taking Sam through security clearances he definitely wouldn’t be qualified to go through under any circumstances but this one. (He should go back to the reflecting pool, find that guard, and tell him he should have let him in to begin with.) “He won’t answer our questions, and keeps asking for you.” 

That stops Sam in his tracks. “Me?”

“Your first name is Sam, right?” Coulson asks. He’s stopped, waiting for him to get his feet moving again. “Because he demands to speak to Sam, and seeing as how it’s unlikely he knows anybody else by that name…”

Sam shakes his head. “This is crazy,” he says.

“That’s what I specialize in,” Coulson says. “Are you still coming?”

Sam snorts as he resumes walking. They stop before an elevator; it only has an option to go down, and Coulson pushes it. “No wonder he’s refusing to talk to you guys, if burying him underground and restricting his contact with the outside world is your idea of bedside manners. I wouldn’t be saying a word to you, either.” Maybe a stupid thing to say, since he doesn’t know where he is and Coulson could very easily lock him up and throw away the key, but he figures that isn’t about to happen, not if they need something from him like this.

“Noted,” Coulson says, voice devoid of emotion. Sam might feel bad if he hadn’t meant every word of it; this is a nightmare. The elevator dings open and they resume walking until they meet a door near the end of the hall. Coulson holds it open for Sam. “We’re here,” he says. “After you.”

Sam looks at Coulson, then peeks in at the room. He enters slowly, checking to make sure that Coulson is behind him, that he isn’t going to lock him away on his own. He isn’t; Coulson follows him in.

Sam takes stock of the room: plain brick and mortar, with one wall taken up by a large window opening a view into another room. There, at a table, sits Thor, very much alive and probably as agitated as Sam is right now, judging by his body language. He doesn’t react to Sam’s presence in the room across from him, though. “What is this?” Sam asks. “Two-way mirror?”

“And an intercom, yes,” Coulson says. “He says he’ll only talk to you, and we need information. This is how it’s going to work.”

Sam looks at Coulson, then back at Thor, oblivious in his own room. There’s an empty chair sitting across from him; Sam’s, presumably. “No,” he says, still looking into the room. “You want me to talk to him, I do it without being spied on.” 

“What?” Coulson asks.

Sam turns back to him, wheels turning in his head. “He won’t talk to any of you, right? He wants to talk to me. So he’ll talk to me, and only me. I’m not violating his trust like that.” 

“You know you aren’t a therapist, right? There’s no patient confidentiality here.”

“I don’t really care,” Sam says, folding his arms across his chest. “Either I talk to him, no strings attached, or nobody talks to him, and whatever operation you’re running here bears no fruit. Your call.”

Coulson sighs. “Do you even know what to ask him?”

“I think we’ll figure it out,” Sam says. He softens. “And hey, you promised you’d give me an update if you could. You kept that promise, kind of. So I can return the favour: if he says something I think you need to know, I’ll tell you. But it’ll be coming from me, not him.”

Coulson cocks his head at him. “So you’re running this now, is that it?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “I hold all the cards, so I guess I am.”

* * *

Thor lifts his head as the door opens, long hair framing his face. “Sam,” he says, flatly. No, not flat - tiredly. He looks exhausted.

Sam squints. “What is he doing cuffed?” he asks, gesturing towards the handcuffs linking Thor’s arms together and to the table. “How am I supposed to have a conversation with a cuffed man?”

“It’s for all our safety,” the agent - not Coulson, he’d excused himself after Sam made him turn off the intercom and lock the other room behind them - says. 

“Safety,” Sam says. He looks at Thor. “You going to hurt anyone here, Thor?”

“Not at the moment,” Thor growls.

Sam nods. “That’s good enough for me. Uncuff him.”

“He didn’t even—“

“I’m sure anyone he hurts will have it coming to them. And I intend to make sure that won’t be me. Now uncuff him so we can have a real, non-coerced conversation.”

The agent looks at Thor, his eyes suddenly sharp with rage and teeth practically bared, and slips a key into Sam’s hand. “It’s your funeral,” he says, leaving. Sam can hear the door lock as he’s shut in; he rolls his eyes as he moves over to the table to free Thor’s wrists.

Thor rubs at them as Sam sits down across from him. He nods. “Thank you, Sam,” he says. “It is most welcome to see a friendly face.”

“So was I right?” Sam asks, skipping the platitudes.

Thor raises an eyebrow. “About?”

“You. Needing to go to the hospital.” 

Thor cocks his head at him, squinting slightly. “Physically, I was well. And then, next thing I knew, I ended up here, separated from all I know and love, so perhaps not.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, “sorry about that. But, in my defence, you did fall out of the sky out of nowhere, which I’m sure we can both agree is not normal.” Thor frowns, like he can’t quite commit to that. “Okay, but it’s not,” Sam says. “And I thought there, at least, you’d be able to meet up with your unit commander, or handler, or whoever’s in charge of you.”

Thor scoffs. “Nobody is in charge of me. What would ever give you that impression?”

Sam spreads his hands. “I don’t know. I don’t know you. I had a unit commander, it seemed like a fair assumption.”

He must have said something right, because Thor’s body relaxes, like the defensiveness is draining out of him, and he smiles. It isn’t a full smile, but it’s more than the grumpy, unimpressed air he’s carried for most of time Sam has known him (which, granted, has not been long). “You are in an army,” he says, as though meeting up with an old friend.

“An— the U.S. Army, yeah,” Sam says, ignoring tenses. This isn’t about him, the facts don’t have to be completely correct.

“You respect the chain of command, then.”

“In the field? Of course. Not doing that is how you get killed.” Or how your friends get killed. Not that Riley had been set up in any way, just that. It happened. He was there to save people, not— 

He still runs the day leading up to that fateful night in his mind, over and over, trying to figure out where things went wrong, if there was anything they could have done differently. He never can, and then the night comes, every night, and he’s left to watch, helpless, in the sky. Every single time, there was nothing he could have done. Maybe one day he’ll dream of something, anything else.

Sam snaps back to reality as he realizes Thor is talking. “— commanded the forces of Asgard,” he’s saying, as though he hasn’t snapped back to reality himself. “Of course, what kind of warrior would I be if I did not join my men in battle? And women,” he adds on after a pause.

“Thor?” Sam asks.

“Yes?” Thor answers.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Thor blinks. “What part confuses you?”

“The whole,” Sam waves vaguely at the air, “Asgard? Thing. The whole— nobody here has ever heard of you, apparently. I don’t know why you got dragged to wherever this is, why you got chained and locked up, but we’re in a very paranoid place right now, so if this is how you’ve been talking this entire time - I’m not saying you’re wrong, or that they were right to do this to you - but it might explain why we are where we are right now. Because if they think they can’t trust you, then… Then this happens.”

“I have told nothing but the truth,” Thor insists. “What would reason would I have to lie? What reason to treat a potential ally in such a manner?”

“Because they can’t verify you’re an ally,” Sam says. “I believe you.” He’s not sure if he does, but that’s the exact opposite of what he suspects Thor needs to hear. “But I could show you a world map, and you wouldn’t be able to find Asgard on it.”

Thor glares. “It would be a trick, then.”

But the wheels are already turning in Sam’s head, recalling something Thor had asked back in their first meeting, when he had fished him out of the river: _What planet is this?_

Planet. If he’s going to believe Thor, then he has to accept Thor is from another planet.

“We don’t have an Asgard on our planet,” Sam tries.

“Asgard is not a part of a planet, it _is_ —“ Thor starts, rage building, then cuts himself off, as if he’s reaching the same conclusion Sam is, his mouth forming a small ‘o’. “What realm is this, then, that you know not of Asgard?”

“We call ourselves Earth,” Sam says. “I’m sorry I can’t help you any further. Were you just insisting on Asgard this whole time?”

“I thought my home carried its name well throughout the nine realms. It appears I was mistaken.” Thor looks off, over Sam’s shoulder, a blank, disbelieving look in his eyes. Under his breath, Sam can barely hear, “Then what else was I mistaken about?”

“Hey man, it happens,” Sam shrugs, trying to play it cool even as his mind races with a neverending _what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck_ — “So then, how did you get here? What can we do to help? You talked about being a potential ally, how can we make that happen?” If Thor is just someone who has lost his mind, then Sam isn’t really risking anything here. But if he is some kind of alien who wants to be friends, then Sam may have stepped out of service of his country, but he can still do a lot to help. 

Thor lowers his head, his hair framing his face. “I do not know,” he says.

Sam waits for him to continue.

Thor does not.

Sam blinks.

Thor stares at the table.

“That’s it?” Sam asks. “That’s— that’s all you have? Come on, man, I can’t help you if you give me nothing to work with. And I want to help. Help me understand, and then maybe I can help them understand.”

Thor looks up, slowly, distress plainly written across his features. “I fear I may be beyond help, at this stage.”

Sam shakes his head. “No. No. Nobody is beyond help.”

“How would you know that? How can you sound so certain?”

“Because you’re still alive.”

Thor pauses at that. He looks at Sam - really looks at him - and something shifts in his gaze. “You pulled me from the river. Not many would do that.”

“I disagree.” 

Thor shakes his head. “No,” he says. “For one thing, it was… repugnant.” And that’s well enough true; Sam remembers the showers after showers after showers until he finally felt clean again. “But it was a brave thing to do. It’s an admirable quality, but not everyone possesses it. You do.” His eyes narrow. “You’ve done it before.” 

Sam takes a breath. “Yeah. Maybe not that specifically, but… yeah.”

“You are in your army, you said. We have a common ground, there. Warrior to warrior - and I suspect that’s something everyone else I have talked to does not understand.”

“Maybe,” Sam starts. This is starting to be about him. He’s not happy about that. “I don’t know anyone’s background here. But I can tell you I don’t trust them.” 

“Because they are not brave.” Thor leans back as far as his chair will let him - which is not far - and smiles. “You took control of the circumstances of our conversation. You implied you have a commander; you should seek leadership opportunities, yourself.”

Sam shakes his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. And, not to make it sound as though I am encouraging you for my benefit, but you would seem to be my closest ally while I am here on your Earth—“

“No,” Sam says. “I left. I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m not brave; I quit.”

The smile falls from Thor’s face as he sits upright once again, any hint of easygoing nature dissipated. “You no longer fight?”

“I never did,” Sam says. “I just tried to save people. Like… like pulling you out of the river.” Like a man falling out of the sky, and every single time it ends the same way, until he’s no good to anybody and cannot save a single soul. 

It falls so quiet that Sam startles in his seat when Thor finally, quietly, asks, “What happened to cause a spirit such as yours to lose hope?”

“His name was Riley,” Sam says, looking at nothing in particular. He can’t remember the last time he actually talked about him to someone other than himself. “We worked together, rescuing people.” Swallows. “And then Riley died, falling out of the sky. And I just couldn’t do it anymore.” Finds Thor’s eyes, almost by accident. “I didn’t even think, man— I just couldn’t let that happen again when I had the power to change it.”

Thor meets his gaze head on. “I must confess I cannot quite empathize,” he says, “but I am not human. Our circumstances are different. But even in the heat of the battle, when I have lost friends, I could not imagine being anywhere else.”

“Do you ever feel wrong?” Sam asks. “For being the one to make it out alive?”

“I do not,” Thor says. “It is the way things are. And I am formidable… but perhaps less so in this mortal form.” He shuts his eyes. “I believe I am starting to understand why my father banished me. I have been a fool.”

Sam lets that slide. “If you were able to get out of here, but unable to return to your home, what would you do?”

“I have not given it thought. I have not considered it a possibility, although perhaps I should,” Thor says. “I do not know. Seek audience with your ruler? Enlist in your army, so that I could continue to fight for what would be my new home? I cannot fly like this, but… you did? How?”

Sam can’t help the small smile that flits across his face. “I had wings. They were great. I’m out of the game, but sometimes I still wish I had them, you know?”

“I’ve never stopped to appreciate the joys of soaring through the sky,” Thor says. “It was always just a means to an end.”

“It’s hard to truly appreciate things until they’re no longer an option, yeah.” Sam still has no idea what Thor is prattling on about, but he thinks they’re both ready to tackle it head on, anew.

* * *

They lose track of time as Thor details to him the intricacies of how he ended up crash landing in the Potomac. Sam is still sceptical, but his story remains consistent with every single other thing Thor has said to him over the times they’ve talked, and really, there’s been a shift in their dialogue, a solid foundation of understanding and trust. And nothing else explains how else Thor came to fall out of a stormy sky, and that SHIELD seems to be just as clueless…

The loud rapping on the door has Sam jumping up and cursing. “What?” he barks at the agent - still not Coulson - who’s disturbed them.

The agent levels him a no-nonsense stare. “It’s been all day. You’re done here.”

Sam jerks a thumb back in Thor’s direction. “So’s he. He’s friendly—“ At that, Thor leans back into the proper sightline and waves— “And not a threat. You have no reason to keep him locked up here. You have no _grounds_ ,” he growls. 

The agent looks between the two of them. “Did he tell you who sent him? Where he’s actually from? Because we have all the grounds we need to hold someone who won’t cooperate in detention.”

“Nobody sent him. He lost his way from Asgard,” Sam says with way more confidence than he actually feels. “If he can’t go back home, he just wants to help.”

“It’s true,” Thor pipes up helpfully from his chair.

The agent looks between them. “Nope,” he says, reaching for Sam’s arm. “Come on. We’ll debrief you, you’ll tell us everything you actually know, and maybe, when he’s actually feeling cooperative, we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

Sam pulls his arm away. “Where’s the first guy? Coulson? Is he above you in pay grade? I want to talk to him.” He doesn’t know the guy at all still, really only knows him for kidnapping Thor and like, pseudo-stalking Sam, but he at least did try to smile a couple of times.

“You’re not getting Coulson,” the agent says. “He’s busy with the situation at the mall.” 

Sam and Thor both speak over each other at once.

“Is that why your people won’t let anyone there?”

“Perhaps I could help with this situation?”

The agent ignores Thor. “It’s not safe for the general public,” he says to Sam. “Which, I’m sure you can understand, is why it’s so important this guy actually smartens up and tell us the truth.”

“Why isn’t it safe?” Sam asks. “What’s going on there, really?”

“There’s an immovable unidentified object,” the agent huffs. “And we can’t determine its purpose—“

“Is it a hammer?” both Sam and Thor ask at the same time.

The agent incredulously looks between them both. He settles for glaring at Sam. “You’ve let this guy get to you. Good call, going all in on your own.”

“I can move it,” Thor says innocently. “If it’s bothering your people. I can move my hammer.”

Sam nods. “He told me about this,” he says. “It’s not a bomb or an explosive or anything like that. It’s just a… magical, enchanted hammer.” Behind him, Thor beams. “And he’s the only one who can move it. So if you want it gone, just take us there.”

The agent looks past Sam, right at Thor. “And then what? Leave us at the mercy of a guy with a magic hammer?” 

“He’s not gonna do anything to hurt anybody. He just wants to go home, and he needs his hammer to do that.” 

“And you’re willing to bet your life on that?”

Sam looks the agent in the eye. “Yeah. So maybe go get Coulson.”

* * *

When Thor steps out of the armoured car and into the sun for the first time, he’s in handcuffs. Sam, who had gotten out just before him, watches as Thor looks up into the sky, blinking at the sun. “The weather is most pleasant.”

“Yeah, you haven’t been here in the summer,” Sam mutters.

Thor looks back at Coulson, just stepping out of his side. He raises his wrists. “I do not see the benefit to being handcuffed. I require my hands to lift my hammer.”

“Just a safety precaution,” Coulson smiles at him. “Let’s wait until we get there.”

Thor huffs. “What would I do? Where would I even go?” he murmurs to Sam. Sam coughs to hide his laugh.

The three of them, plus an assortment of guards, make their way to the reflecting pool. They’re already behind lines closed off to the public; really, the perimeter they’ve established is impressive, Sam figures. Ahead of them is a massive white containment tent, spanning the entire length of the pool and then some: it’s long and narrow, and Sam doesn’t remember seeing it before.

They approach the entrance, Sam following in behind Coulson and Thor, looking around at the expanse of poles holding the structure up, the second level constructed, how everything is focused around this one epicentre everyone seems to be keeping their distance from. There are monitors and equipment around Sam wouldn’t know the first thing about, though it all looks extremely overblown from what he knows of the situation.

Thor, apparently, agrees, because he walks right into the eye of the activity storm, where nobody else has dared approach the hammer, the handle of which he can just now see jutting up from the cracked pool floor beneath. Everything, everyone around them seems to freeze. Thor turns back around, holding out his wrists expectantly. “May I?” he asks. 

Coulson seems to be affected by everyone else’s hesitance. Sam nudges at him with the toe of his shoe. “You already know he’s not going to bite you.”

That seems to snap him out of it, as Coulson finally moves forward, approaching Thor. He eyes the hammer warily; Thor smiles at him, easily. “Mjolnir will not bring any of you harm,” he says. “And neither will I, if I may just be reunited, and return to Asgard.”

Coulson stares up at him. “And you’re a man of your word?”

“Aye,” Thor dips his head slightly in acknowledgment, “I would loathe to be anything less.”

With that, his hands are free, and Sam steps back to enjoy the show.

Thor reaches out with his hand. Nothing happens.

He grips the handle with his hand. Nothing happens. 

He grips the handle with both of his hands and pulls, straining. He falls over backwards, the hammer not having even budged. Somewhere, there’s a laugh someone attempts to mask as a cough. Thor glares in its general direction before turning back to stare at the unbudging handle, arms resting on his knees, breathing heavily.

“I don’t understand,” Coulson finally says.

“Well, that makes two of us,” Thor all but growls.

“So you can’t move it?” Coulson ventures.

Thor grinds his teeth together. “Apparently not!”

Sensing things are about to take a horrible turn, Sam steps forward. “Can I try?”

Thor gestures limply. “Have at it if you want, but I suspect you’ll get exactly the same result.”

Coulson grabs Sam’s arm as he passes, stopping him. In a low breath so only the two of them can hear, he says, “Are you sure it’s safe? This entire thing feels a lot like an ambush.” 

“All due respect, but I’ve been in more effective ambushes,” Sam mutters back. “He’s been nothing but forthright with me. This isn’t a trick. He’ll help you if you actually let him.” And with that, he leaves Coulson behind, reaches out for the handle, pulls, and… lets go, not seeing the need to strain as hard as Thor had.

“So it’s not moving,” Sam says.

“Because none here are worthy,” Thor says, “myself included in the lot.” He’s staring upward, at the roof of the makeshift tent, though it’s clear to Sam he’s looking somewhere beyond that.

Sam goes to sit with him as the activity around them slowly comes back to life; why, he doesn’t know, because it’s clearly all useless. “Okay. So how do we get you worthy again?” 

Thor blinks, snapping out of his self-imposed trance to look back at Sam. “Some grand, impossible gesture, I would imagine,” he says, helplessly.

“Okay. And other than that?”

Thor looks at Sam as though he’s speaking in tongues. “There is no other than that.”

“Yes there is. There always is. You told me I was brave even though I insisted I wasn’t; maybe I am. But if I still can be, then there’s still a way for you, too. If you were going to have misplaced faith in me then I’m going to have misplaced faith in you, deal?”

Thor just stares at him for a while before a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes breaks across his face. “I suppose I can agree to those terms.” Then, “What other options do I have?”

Before them, Coulson clears his throat. “I believe you’ll have to start catching me up, Wilson. We had an agreement. And I have no idea what you two are talking about.”

Sam coughs. “Yeah, I’m not so sure myself.”

* * *

It takes a lot of convincing - two and three and four times over, and then some for good measure - to get anyone else to accept the possibility that Thor isn’t of Earth. Eventually, Coulson gives in, and takes the two of them - that Sam is the only one who seems willing to take Thor at his word without question at this point has apparently made him the perfect tag along - to look at SHIELD’s most prized possession they’re still researching.

Thor recognizes it immediately, a brief flash of horror dawning in his eyes as he realizes what it is and what’s being done with it. “You need to stop playing with the Tesseract immediately.”

“And do what with it instead?” Coulson asks. “If we can understand how it works, the applications alone—“

“No,” Thor— doesn’t demand, he begs. “Please, you must leave it be. You know not the forces you are playing with and because of that you will attract the kind of attention you do not want and cannot handle.”

Suspicion immediately crosses Coulson’s features. “Because you want it instead.”

Thor spreads his huge arms wide. “I can’t even lift my hammer, what could I do with something so much more powerful than that? Heimdall!” he starts shouting out. “Heimdall, even if I may not return home, I know you hear me! I know you see what is happening here! For the good of this world, I beg of you, alert Odin, send someone to retrieve the Tesseract! Heimdall!”

Nothing happens. Thor bows his head in frustration; Sam can swear he sees tears pricking at the edges of his eyes. Coulson crosses his arms. “Are you finished?”

Thor raises his head to look him in the eye. “Do you believe I am not of this world?” he asks.

“I’m starting to, yeah.”

“Do you then accept that there are some things I may know that you do not?”

“That’s always a possibility.”

“Then will you accept my words when I say that your fooling around with the Tesseract is inviting more advanced beings to war and for the good of your very planet you must stop?”

Coulson shakes his head. “I can’t take orders from you. We still have a hammer stuck in a popular tourist attraction that you haven’t been able to get rid of. At some point, we have to draw the line.”

“Then you are drawing it in the wrong place, and I only pray I am able to save you from your mistakes when the time comes.”

* * *

It takes maybe a year.

The containment tent is eventually taken down and reflecting pool refilled as it becomes hopelessly apparent to everybody that there will be no moving of that hammer (on the plus side, as Sam helped prove, it isn’t dangerous just by being there, either, which allows the area to be opened to the public again, hammer blissfully submerged). With absolutely no grounds to lock Thor away - he’s repeatedly proven to be nothing but cooperative, if cryptic, and only occasionally threatening when extremely flustered - Sam has also bargained his way into an unexpected roommate.

They go shopping. Sam teaches him how to use the metro, how to text. He has a new running partner, someone to revisit Smithsonians with, someone to watch sports with who actually seems genuinely interested to learn. (Soccer and hockey are the easiest as soon as Thor gets that it’s nothing more than a friendly competition, barring the horrible things Sam says about Pittsburgh; baseball takes a bit longer.) He has someone to sit in the back of his group sessions as he works towards being able to work at the VA full time, a warrior unwillingly removed from his craft, a quiet existence to allow for moments of reflection that may not have been gained otherwise. (“I must confess if I were able to go back in time and smack my more foolhardy self, I absolutely would.”)

Sam has someone who understands his dismissal of his mattress, who learns to just quietly be there when he wakes up in a cold sweat, who reassures him that he always did the right thing, whether he was capable of helping the man who fell out of the sky or not. 

And though he’s never seen Thor fly himself, he has someone to talk to who understands the pure joy it can be.

Until he catches the news report from Germany, the tail end of a near disaster and amateur footage covering the madness from before, and beside him, Thor stiffens, then runs out.

Sam chases after him and, on the train to the mall, learns that that was Thor’s brother.

Watches from the edge as Thor steps into the reflecting pool, feeling about with his hands. Shields his eyes as lightning surrounds them, an armoured, crackling Thor holding Mjolnir aloft before him.

Thor turns to look at him and all Sam can think is, _Thank god I believed him._

“Sam,” Thor says, and he’s very familiar with that deep voice by now, but it’s so much more… he can’t place the quality. God-like, maybe. “I know you are retired. But if you wish to aid me…” 

The god, uncertainly asking for his help. Because Sam bowed out of the game ages ago. He’s on the sidelines now, not in the main fight.

The god, who never once doubted his bravery.

Wings back on and right behind Thor in the skies, Sam thinks that however all of this turns out, by the end of it, they’ll have both earned a flight just for the joy of it. It's been too long for him.


End file.
